Lot 154: DON MCILVANE (1930 - 2005) Breadline.

DON MCILVANE (1930 - 2005)
Breadline.

Oil on canvas, 1972. 915x1117 mm; 36x44 inches. Signed and dated "7/72" in oil, upper left.

Provenance: ex-collection the artist; private Chicago collection.

Chicago's great mural artist, Don McIlvane is known for his large street paintings of everyday struggles. Born in Washington DC, he attended Sunday morning art classes as a youth with Lois Mailou Jones. She later assisted him in getting a scholarship to study at Howard University. After studies at the Corcoran Art School and the Newark Academy of Art, the artist moved to Chicago in 1957. Working with gang youth in his Lawndale neighborhood, McIlvane elevated mural art to national attention in 1969-1970 with six dynamic and politically-conscious street paintings. Inteviewed for a 1970 Time Magazine article about diversity in visual art, he declared "People decorate the street because that's where their life is." His mural Black Man's Dilemma is illustrated in the recent Pomegranate publication, Walls of Heritage/Walls of Pride: African-American Murals.